Network Rail Wales and Western: Modernising Management for Bands 1-4

Further to the email sent by the company relating to Modernising Management for bands 1-4 in the region, your TSSA Wales & Western Regional Management Reps met with Senior Management on Monday 21^st February.

The company insisted that these talks should press ahead despite TSSA being in a failure to agree on National Principles relating to Modernising Management for bands 1-4.

Your TSSA representatives made it clear both in advance of and at the meeting that it should have been adjourned to allow the avoidance of dispute procedure to be exhausted at National Principles level in accordance with the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that the TSSA has with Network Rail.

Therefore, the TSSA has registered a Failure to Agree at Wales and Western Regional level as a result of the company’s failure to adhere to Clause 5.1 of the CBA. Clause 5.1 states that there will be no imposition by management until procedures have been exhausted, and it is not the case that procedures have yet been exhausted.

The TSSA have written to the company stating that when the avoidance of dispute procedure has been exhausted at National Principles level, the Wales and Western Band 1-4 Consultation for VSS Phase 1 meeting should then be re-convened to consider the outcomes, any consequential impact on the Wales and Western Proposals, and the resulting substantive proposal.

Therefore, until the failure to agree National Principles is resolved thereby resolving our Regional Failure to Agree, the TSSA cannot continue to engage with the company on consultations at a regional level, regardless of the company continuing to insist that these take place.

Whilst Senior Management advise there are no displacements in the region, numerous vacant posts will be removed. This will not only add work on to those staff remaining in the business it will also remove promotional opportunities and lead to more posts being occupied by external contractors embedded within Network Rail.

TSSA believe that the company is prioritising making existing staff redundant whilst external contractor numbers increase or remain unaffected. Numerous colleagues across the company are going to be significantly negatively impacted by this strategy and the TSSA will continue in its robust protection of members jobs.

To confirm, the TSSA’s failure to agree with Network Rail on National Principles, is based on the following:

• The company employs over 2,000 contractor/agency staff in management roles, yet they refuse to remove these staff to preserve your jobs
• The Company declined hundreds of applications for the Special Voluntary Severance Scheme, and yet they refuse to open a company-wide Voluntary Severance scheme that we know would be attractive to many staff
• The Company have advertised huge numbers of jobs externally over the past months and continue to do so with over 100 jobs on the website this week. However, they refuse to implement a recruitment freeze to make these jobs available to staff at risk
• The Company have nearly 400 management grade vacancies internally, yet they refuse to implement a national closed listing to maximise opportunities for staff at risk

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